Greek Texts & Translations

in which it is said Osiris is buried. This, however, is questioned by many persons, and particularly by the inhabitants of Philae, which is situated above Syene and Elephantina. These people tell this tale, that Isis placed coffins of Osiris in various places, but that one only contained the body of Osiris, so that no one knew which of them it was; and that she did this with the intention of concealing it from Typhon, ^note who might come and cast the body out of its place of deposit. 24

This is the description of the country from Alexandreia to the vertex of the Delta.

Artemidorus says, that the navigation up the river is 28 schoeni, which amount to 840 stadia, reckoning the schoenus at 30 stadia. When we ourselves sailed up the river, schoeni of different measures were used at different places in giving the distances, so that sometimes the received schoenus was a measure of 40 stadia and even more. That the measure of the schoenus was unsettled among the Egyptians, Artemidorus himself shows in a subsequent place. In reckoning the distance from Memphis to Thebais, he says that each schoenus consists of 120 stadia, and from the Thebaïs to Syene of 60 stadia. In sailing up from Pelusium to the same vertex of the Delta, is a distance, he says, of 25 schoeni, or 750 stadia, and he employs the same measure.

On setting out from Pelusium, the first canal met with is that which fills the lakes, near the marshes, as they are called. There are two of these lakes, situated upon the left hand of the great stream above Pelusium in Arabia. He mentions other lakes also, and canals in the same parts beyond the Delta.

The Sethroïte Nome extends along one of the two lakes. He reckons this as one of the ten nomes in the Delta. There are two other canals, which discharge themselves into the same lakes. 25

There is another canal also, which empties itself into the Red Sea, or Arabian Gulf, near the city Arsinoë, which some call Cleopatris. ^note It flows through the Bitter Lakes, as